Gardening for Art and Soul

May garden clean up time is a big job that takes me away from studio time.  The shot below is of the west quarter of our yard and it is a very slow work in progress.  As much as gardening feels like a sacrifice of studio time, I do it with joy because the garden feeds my soul as a sanctuary, it provides me with the flora I use in my jewelry collages, and it pleases "The Invisibles" that I feel so closely in my creative life.  One of my favorite philosophers, John O'Donohue writes that, "Soul is the natural shelter around your life" and quotes Blaise Pascal that in difficult times, beauty will save us in the end.  My greatest happiness and desire is to create little shelters of soulful beauty.  

The West Garden Spring 2017

This is also my biggest challenge, because the rest of my "slow work in progress garden" is complete chaos...because, then, there are all the other projects that need tending as well....Maybe I just need to acknowledge that my life is about tending and creating and let go of any notion that there will be completion.  Maybe soulful shelters of beauty can be a slow work in progress.

One of my jewelry collages